Monday, January 12, 2015

"To Enter Heaven a Man Must Take It With Him" Henry Drummond

Hola everyone!!

About a week ago we were all told that there is going to be a huge change for all the missions in Southern South America! On Friday we had a zone meeting and our zone leaders told us that we are getting rid of all ¨ key indicators¨ and instead we are just going to focus on one baptism and one reactivation (of a less active member) every month! For those of you that don´t know what key indicators are, they are the ¨standards¨ that all missionaries around the world are working towards every day.The key indicators are: investigators baptized and confirmed, investigators with a baptismal date, investigators present in Sacrament meeting, lessons taught to investigators with a member present, other lessons taught, progressing investigators, references, new investigators, and lessons taught to less actives with a member present. So basically every missionary around th world is working towards these standards every day and trying to fulfill every single indicator at least once a day! But, all of the mission presidents of the missions in Southern South America met together with an Elder of the Seventy and decided to get ride of all the key indicators and solely focus on one baptism and one reactivation a month! Of course we still need to have lessons with members, references, and all those other things...but now our main goal is to baptize and reactivate! It is crazy! Not only that, President Lovell decided to get rid of having all the missionaries report in weekly letters if we are following the missionary schedule (ex: wake up at 7, go to bed at 11, only one hour for lunch, etc.) Now it is up to us whether we are truly obedient and follow the missionary schedule!! If we choose to follow or not follow, it is between us and Heavenly Father! Anyway, I am super excited about all these changes and I look at it as an opportunity to become a fully converted, consecrated missionary!

This week was great! We have two new investigators named Maria Laura and Debora. Debora is 35 years old and we pay our rent to her every month. We have talked to her two times before but never mentioned anything about the church! On Thursday we went to pay the rent and the first thing she said when she sat down at her desk was ¨ Cuando viene Jesucristo?¨ (When does Christ come?) Perfect question to get us talking about Christ and the Book of Mormon! We talked to her about the church for about 4 minutes and she know a ton about the Bible! She told us that she would love to learn more and read the Book of Mormon, how cool?! Hermana Perez and I are super excited to start teaching her and we hope that she will be able to take time off of work to come to church with us next Sunday!

Fun things that happened this week:

-Transfers! Transfers were yesterday but nothing changed for me! Hermana Perez is still my comp, I am still in Villa Regina, and I am excited to have one more transfer here!

-Asado with Fabian! Asado is basically a bunch of grilled meats and it is delicious!!! Fabian also gave us peaches that he has had bottled 2 years, they were sooooo good! When we thanked him for the asado, he said, ¨ Of course! You both have been so patient with me to teach me all of the lessons, this is just an act of charity to thank you both!¨ He is the best.

-The other day it was 104 degrees!! crazy

-The Chippings and the Healys, thank you for the Christmas cards! I was so excited to receive mail! Also, shout out to Kuilina, I LOVE YOU! Thank you for the letter!!!!! I will be replying to all of you soon!!

-This week we got the statistics of our ward and we have 300 members in our ward!! But, we have an average of about 30 members coming to church every Sunday...so we have a lot of work to do!